To help neurodivergent learners, educators, and organizations thrive through strengths-based education, research, and community.

A future where cognitive diversity is recognized as an asset and every person has access to environments where they can thrive.

Woodland Pacific began long before it had a name—with someone we love struggling, and a search for something better.

Co-founders and couple Jared James May and John Paul Edwards met in Boston—Jared was working at Harvard; John was completing doctoral work at Boston College. Their relationship, first romantic, eventually became the foundation for a shared vision of education. As Jared returned to school, John’s pastoral sensibility—marked by curiosity, reflection, and a strengths-focused approach—helped Jared rediscover confidence as a learner.

That success took root at Villanova University, where both would work for over a decade. Villanova’s Augustinian values of justice, interiority, and relationality deeply shaped the philosophy that continues to guide Woodland Pacific: one of dignity, inclusion, and community.

The idea matured when Jared began his doctoral work at Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education, a school grounded in Dr. Susan Baum’s leadership in twice-exceptional education and shaped by the scholarship of Dr. Joseph Renzulli and the University of Connecticut. Bridges provided both an academic framework for strengths-based, neuro-affirming education and a community where future collaborators first found one another.

In the summer of 2021, during Bridges residency, Jared met Véra Radunsky, Danielle Mizuta, and Amy Clark. What began as academic conversations stretched into long evenings of reflection, laughter, and shared hopes for the future. Over time, those friendships deepened. Ideas turned into projects, and projects turned into a collective sense of mission. The group began offering workshops for faculty and parents, experimenting with formats rooted in dialogue, reflection, and learner-centered support.

Meanwhile, Dr. Joyce, a fellow Villanova faculty alum and longtime friend of John and Jared, was bringing her own expertise in inclusive education and leadership into the conversation. Her presence helped connect the values of Villanova and Bridges, and she became a trusted voice as early ideas began to solidify into something real.

As these educational conversations unfolded, Christie May, a strategic leader at Deloitte, was moving through the ranks of corporate leadership and gaining insight into what many organizations still miss: that failing to engage neurodivergent talent isn’t just an equity issue—it’s a business loss. Her clarity about how systems overlook valuable minds became an essential part of the Woodland Pacific vision.

Woodland Pacific grew from these intersecting journeys—friendship and vocation, learning and lived experience, theory and trust. It’s an effort to scale something we found in small, transformative moments: what becomes possible when neurodivergent people are met with recognition, consistency, and the space to grow into themselves. We believe that every person carries a spark—an emerging combination of strengths, interests, sensitivities, and possibilities that can be overlooked, misunderstood, or suppressed by poorly matched environments.

Woodland Pacific exists to help people and environments adapt to one another so that spark can be protected, developed, and expressed.